Historically, design was a surface-level embellishment for an already working product. It used to appear at the end of the creation process when the functional aspects of the object had already been established.
This changed in 1919 when German architect Walter Gropius founded the Bauhaus School of Crafts, design, Art, and Architecture. Gropius was heavily influenced by American modernist architect Henry Louis Sullivan, who had coined in 1896 the famous axiom “form follows function” (a phrase often misattributed to Gropius himself). This means that, while beauty is still relevant, the look and feel of a product should be primarily determined by its function. Usability comes first, before any purely decorative additions. This way, usability, aesthetics, and mechanics are intertwined and influence each other. The new approach encouraged everyone involved in the creation process to incorporate design principles from the start.
After World War II, many researchers began to devise a mental process comparable to the scientific method, allowing them to obtain creative and innovative ideas in the field of business. In 1960, sociologist and psychologist Herbert A. Simon proposed a model composed of three stages (Intelligence, Design, and Choice) to solve problems satisfactorily. In the mid-1960s, German design theorist Horst Rittel coined the term “wicked problem” to describe multidimensional and highly complex issues. Solving such problems would become a core goal of design thinking. In 1969, Simon made another significant contribution by proposing design as a way of thinking for the first time and emphasizing the importance of prototyping. Inspired by Simon’s work, in 1973, Robert McKim released his book Experiences on Visual Thinking, where he explained how we can exploit our ability to “think visually” (a keystone of many art-and-design-related disciplines) to achieve creative solutions.
In 1980, architect and psychologist Bryan Lawson studied the way architecture and science students (labeled respectively as “designers” and “scientists”) approached problems. Lawson concluded that the scientists were problem-focused problem-solvers, whereas the designers were solution-focused.
At the same time, users were becoming increasingly important in the design process. The 1960s saw the rise of participatory design, which involved stakeholders in the early design stages. In 1986, Donald Norman introduced user-centered design, a methodology for understanding the target audience's needs, goals, and behaviors.
While it’s disputed when the term design thinking appeared for the first time, it’s a well-established fact that it took hold in 1991, when David Kelley, Bill Moggridge, and Mike Nuttall founded the design and consultancy firm IDEO. Kelley is also the founder of Stanford University's Hasso Plattner School of Design, also known as the d.school. These two institutions have been the leading promoters of design thinking for more than three decades. It was also from Stanford University that American designer Rolf Faste proposed teaching specific design abilities (like creativity and visual perception) to engineering students to achieve products that were technically functional and artistically valuable. Since design thinking never ceased to gain ground among companies willing to deliver innovative solutions, it keeps being refined by the appearance of new frameworks and ways to implement them.
Now that we understand design thinking and how it has evolved over time, let’s begin the process.
